Aftermath for GAFYW Annual Event...

7- Writer from Australia:
Fallout
Warif Elobaid
Everything is plain, there are no trees. No grass. No Cities. It’s a Wasteland. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know how I got here, I look back and I see a gigantic vault door. The small dusty sign above it reads ‘Vault 152’, Vault 152… It definitely rings a bell but I have no idea who I am, or what I’m doing here. But I have a feeling I’m looking for something.
In the distance I spot a small metal dome-looking town, As soon as I start making my way to the town I hear the crunch of my boots on the yellow and shattered gravel. I was half way there when the sound of the crunching I was hearing disappeared, and was replaced by the sound of a massive explosion. I fell back and closed my eyes until I felt safe enough to open them again, fortunately for me, I opened my eyes to a picturesque shimmering dome of light from the explosion. Unfortunately, whoever was in the explosion would have had a bad time.
I continue my way to the town treading past several eerie corpses, as I get to the town gate I notice there is a pile of metal junk crumbled into a little ball. As surprised as I am seeing the shiny ball, it starts to roll over to me, just then in the instant of a second, it popped up into a human like figure. The “Robot” (not quite sure what it was) had two arms and one bulky leg with a wheel on it, and one big screen head that stood on its neck. “Hello” It said in a synthesized voice. “…” I replied…I had no idea why I couldn’t speak but as much as I tried to utter a single word, I just couldn’t. “Well, this is a friendly town now, so don’t try anything” It commanded, A big grey door open with a screeching sound revealing the city I was to see. It wasn’t as I expected. It wasn’t as crowded or as busy as thought it would be for such a big place. There was a market with about four or five crooked stalls to the left, and to the right, a mound of ceramic material neatly assembled in tiles creating walls and a roof towers over me. After I had finished examining the town, a man who was about 6’7 and at least 43 years of age wearing a trench coat and cowboy hat, bellows over me “Hello, welcome to my city, I’m the sheriff nice to meet you” He says happily “…” I stupidly open my mouth and wanted to tell him how I couldn’t speak, “Ah, so you’re a mute are you? Yeah well, we don’t get a lot from the
vaults like you” he added, I had no idea what he was talking about when he said that so I gave him all I could and looked at him quizzically “Hehahahaaa” he chuckled merrily, “Go see old man Graffiti” As much as I would like to think that was the most horrible name in the world (must have got a lot of crap at school) it also might have been his nickname.
The Sheriff then turned my shoulders to the right, now I was facing an old but colourful, run down house which had a quixotic looking old man sitting on a swinging chair on the porch. “Well, see’ya ‘round” Exclaimed sheriff while walking away. I slowly made my way to the old man and the moment I stepped on his porch I noticed he was sleeping. I didn’t want to wake the old man, so I turned back and headed to the market. “Wait.” he whispered, His voice caused a shiver to run down my back. Almost as if…I’ve know this voice before.
”You don’t know, but I do…You’re a mute…A person who cannot talk” he whispered again. He pointed to a seat then said “Sit. Take your time”, I walked chair, creeped out with my eyes glued to the man. He handed me a blackish sliver board looking tablet and a pencil. “Write what you wish to say” He muttered, I took the pencil in my hand and slid it across the screen. A bright white line followed the trail of my pencil. I thought to myself ‘wow. Since I’m a “mute” this will be perfect!’
“--Thank you –“I wrote on the tablet, which I then showed him “you’re welcome”, he merrily said “Well then son, you don’t where you are. Do you?” he added “–no sir—“I responded “It was a bomb. From space.” He said cracking a smile “—is this why it’s so dry and plain?—“I scribbled. “Why yes, yes. The bomb was nearly as big as the moon and the cause was space junk and garbage” he exclaimed. “—I have never of space garbage, sir” “Long ago, People used to send rocket fuelled garbage into space because the earth was too full of it, then 20 years after they have started sending the garbage into space, then it all went out of hand and all the garbage started forming then…then Karama hit NASA right in the face with a brick. The garbage started to get pulled in to earth because it was too heavy to orbit around the earth” He went on and on… But the important thing was that it was NASA’s fault.
“*cough* Well, Sonny you haven’t even told me your name yet! “He shouted “—I don’t have a name—“I scribbled, “WHAT? Oh yeah...You’re a vault
type…How’s ‘Thane’? He asked, Thane…thane…I liked it. I liked it so much it made me smile “—Thane’s good—“I joyfully wrote. It was getting dark, but I and graffiti still talked for a while then we had some dinner. Afterwards I thanked him for the meal and walked out to the front of his porch and looked back at his house. Then I realised something. That his colorfully painted house wasn’t painted that way. It was graffiti on the walls and roof, and it was vandalised. No wonder it was crooked and rundown. Just then, A ‘gang’ of people walked towards me but since it was dark I couldn’t see how much people were there. “You here to graffiti?” One of them said. I couldn’t talk so he shoved me into a beam which was supporting the house roof and smashed on my head and knock me out cold. My first reaction was to beat the absolute out of whoever done that but I was out. “Hey butch” “yeah?” “Should we hide him?” “Take him out near the Lair of Heller”…………………………………………….
A while after that has happened I wake up to the sight of the a ghastly figure looking over me and whispering to my ear, I wake up and found myself in a dark, isolated small shack. The ghostly figure was clumped spider web, and the whisper was the slightly open window near me. “sleep.” Cried an eerie voice, I looked behind me but as soon as I tried to get up, my eyelids felt heavy and I fell to the rickety old bed in an instant. A couple of hours later I got up with a sore leg because in had my writing board in my pocket. Shocked, I got up and examined the shack for a good 5 minutes then saw a door and a key next to the door on a hinged coat hanger. I grabbed the key and tried to open the door but it wouldn’t fit in, so I tried shaking it. Really hard. Until it snapped. “This is the real key” My face went blank and I literally jumped across the room I looked over to who it was, and I saw young lady wearing red and black studded overall tights and a facemask. “Don’t be afraid…I saved your life.” The shadowy person said. “You know something? If you really want the key you’re going to have to do me a favour!” She exclaimed. I got out my writing pad and scribbled “—what’s on your mind?—“With a gloomy look on my face “Blow-up NASA.” She quickly said. “—WHY?! They saved the human colonies by not letting garbage interfere with everyday lives. —” I scribbled “They are also responsible for destroying human colonies and starting a new era”. Since I had no other choice, I had to give in to the clever stranger “—I’ll do you the favour. But only if you help. —” I wrote “sure, and by the way…My name is Scarlett.” she said. She unlocked the door and we were on our way to the NASA commissioning
centre think she said it was. She packed some explosives and weapons and we headed over to the station. “—are we expecting company–?”I Asked “yup, here” she said while tossing me Sub-machine guns, a flash grenade and a packet of clips “You’ll definitely need those.” she remarked. In no time we were at the station. It was a colossal, towering building made from white stone and brick. “Okay I’ll sneak in from the back and you can go in guns blazing from the front” She ordered, and against my luck the front door was guarded heavily. I was in cover and needed to get to the left side of the fallen pillar I was covering behind but there was big gap in the middle so I tried to commando roll my way to the left side, but the first thing anybody did was open fire. This means that they were guarding a big secret. Before I hoped out of cover I was thinking about pulling the trigger and ending someone’s life, which wasn’t an easy thing to do. But I had to. I had to find out what they were doing and I had to find out what they are planning. Scarlett had already infiltrated the back. I thought. Did she kill anyone? Is she hurt? I snapped out of it and hopped up and pulled the trigger a few times without even seeing my targets, and the recoil was so powerful it knocked me back into the cover I was in…This wasn’t no ordinary gun…, so I was a sitting duck to the army men, I was worried about Scarlett and I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered the flash bang she gave me, so I set off the clip and gave it my hardest throw. There was a loud bang, so I looked over and it worked! The army men were retreating, so I made my way into the station and I arrived at a big console command computer room. “Hello. Thane.” Said a man Scarlett, the Sherriff and the Gang were all there. I have never been so confused in my life… What were they all doing there? “My name is Darius. I have built a robot mad from garbage and litter and it will destroy the world as we know it. Scarlett and the ‘Sherriff’ are my associates” “Confused? I would be too. “Said the chief “Don’t worry, you don’t have to do any work saving the planet. You’ll die here too!” exclaimed Scarlett. I didn’t know whether to believe it or not, but I was interrupted by a massive screeching robot that looked at me with its unstable orange eyes. And before I knew it, they were all gone. Scarlett, Sherriff, The man and the gang. The robot was connected to four tubes they opened up, I shot them with my submachine gun, and fell to the ground. Several hours later I looked up. And the robot was in pieces.
Warif Elobaid
Stromlo High School
Year 9

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The Tale of the Sudanese Thawb
8- Writer from Khartoum:
Mustafa Elsheikh Mustafa
It was a beautiful summer day in Khartoum with no clouds in the sky but a cold breeze blew around and if you were to look at the Nile river you would see many people fishing that day, you would also see a man with hair as white as snow and a withered look on him he might look weak and fragile but in truth he could outrun many who were much younger than him, his hazel brown eyes shining with happiness as he sat under the shade of a big date palm with a man who appears to be in his late thirties with jet black hair and hazel eyes like his father that were filled with joy and next to him sat a women not much younger than him with eyes as blue as the sky that lingered protectively over the three little kids who were happily playing together she kept looking at them until her husband asked her to help him layout the plates of food they’d gotten with them from their house and as they all sat down and started to eat the youngest child looked at his mother and said : “Mum why do Sudanese women wear thawb’s ?” in reply his mother shrugged and said “it’s very nice and comfortable” she was in the process of cutting up some meat into smaller pieces so her daughter could eat it when she was interrupted by her father-in-law who had a mischievous smile on his face and he said in a deep strong voice “kids, let me tell you a story from long, long ago” and the kids answer came in form of multiple loud squeals of delight and their parents smiled because they knew he would make up a story up to entertain the kids.
“This is a story of courage, endurance and adventure. This story is as old as the Sudanese culture itself; it is so old it has been forgotten by most people. It all started when a young Sudanese women was getting ready to go out with her husband and kids to watch the annual dance and feast of their tribe and as she was walking towards the door of their hut her abaya got stuck on a rock and was ripped and as the lady turned around groaning she realized that the abaya had just become more comfortable. After going back to change she thought of how better life would be if she could just wear something just as comfortable all the time and she knew her jalabiya wouldn’t suffice so she promised herself she would tell the tribe chief’s wife to find a way to rid them of these disastrous items of clothing so at the next big meeting the tribe chief decided to issue a quest in which three of the villages strongest and bravest men would go. These three heroes would head west and have to endure blistering heat and defeat mighty beasts in order to find the temple of the tailors who would give them a sheet sowing how to make the perfect clothing for women. The three men were called Ahmed, Basil and Mustafa. The next morning at the break of dawn as the sun was just making its way up the roof tops and the roosters started to crow they embarked on their perilous quest. After two days of undisturbed greenery and peaceful travel the guys were starting to lay back a bit, they started to have less shifts for watching so on the third day when a lion crept up on them during the middle of the day as they were sitting in a circle chatting and eating their lunch and as the lion charged, the first to see it was Ahmed who scream “LION” but as his friends jumped to get their weapons the lion had already leaped at them and its sharp jagged teeth narrowly missed Mustafa’s arm but its claws caught on the hem of his jalabiya and tore of a piece of it but before it could do any serious damage Basil who had recovered from the shock and had grabbed his shield hit the lion with it over his head aiming to knock it out not kill it as he was very sympathetic towards animals, he knew that the lion probably only attacked because they had trespassed on its territory. The rest of the week passed uneventful, non-the less they did not let their guard down this time, but they also didn’t find what they were looking for, and as the days passed the forest started to thin out and by the middle of the next week they were deep in the dessert and it was getting harder to know where they are but luckily Ali knew how to use the stars as a map so he kept them on track, by the end of their first week in the barren waste land they were almost out of supplies and the temple was nowhere to be seen so they decided that from then on they would only travel by night. By the third night they were getting desperate but they were still on alert so when it was Basil’s turn to guard he did not overlook the small black scorpion that crawled out of a small hole next to Ahmed and he didn’t hesitate to stab it with the dagger in his hand but as soon as he did more scorpions burst out of the same hole and many others and as Ali started grabbing his belongings he called for his friends to wake up. As they blinked the sleep out of their eyes they realized the danger they were in and started to crawl away picking their belongings in the way. After that night they made sure there were no holes in the places they made camp at, by the third week of their adventure they weren’t expecting to come by the temple anytime soon so when they saw a dark blue building in the horizon they were so happy they ran straight at it and didn’t stop until they were at the bright yellow gates of the temple of the tailors. As they walked to the gates of the temple they swung open of their own accord to show not just a temple but a garden of breath taking beauty they walked towards the temple, through the garden, following a path made of bricks and as they got to the gates a voice boomed from behind the gates saying: “WHO ARE YOU? AND WHAT BUSINESS DO YOU HAVE HERE?”. As if on queue Basil stepped forward and said “I am Basil and these are my companions Ahmed and Mustafa, we were sent here by our tribe chief to seek the perfect clothing and he said you would have the answer” after that there was a moment of silence then the door opened to show many people of different races and ages working together weaving clothes of different color, shape and size whilst chatting and laughing among each other. Right in front of them stood a man who said in the same voice as before “welcome heroes, we have been expecting you”. After that he gave them a quick tour of the temple showing them the different rooms and halls and introducing them to some of the volunteers who apparently came to learn there from all over the world. When they got to the room in which the chief tailor was supposed to meet them he treated them with honor and offered them a feast in their name but they kindly rejected his kind offer and asked if he could give them the item of clothing so they could go back home but he said “I can only give you the written instruction for they can only be read by the person meant to read them and all others do not understand what they see written on it”. After that the heroes filled their supplies and started their journey back home which was thankfully uneventful for if they had met another lion they would have surely lost their lives. When they got back to their village they were greeted with a feast and a dance and were treated as heroes for the rest of their lives. The sheet was passed around the people of the village until they found someone who could read the instructions and incidentally it was the daughter woman who had cut her abaya all those weeks before and the next day she stood in front of the chiefs house with all the villagers and said “I HAVE IT”.
THE END
“And that kids is the real story of how your mother and all Sudanese women got to wear Thawb’s” said the grandfather. After that they got ready to leave but before they got in the car they all stood and watched the beautiful view as the sun set ending a very beautiful day.

THE REAL END

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